Evidence of Things Unknown
by newslayer
Summary: (JoelTeresa) You know you're in trouble when things you're supposed to do start to feel... just wrong.


**Evidence of Things Unknown**

**Disclaimer:** Boomtown does not belong to me in any way or form. Lord knows if I was in charge, the show would still be on the air...

**Author's Note:** This is some kind of Joel/Teresa, in a weird sort of way. Nah, who am I kidding. This is Joel/Teresa through and through, from top to bottom, most definitely post "Home Invasion".

**Rating:** PG-13.

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Darkness. That is all you have seen in a long time. She cuddles against you and you feel the urge to pull away, because every time she touches you it burns you. 

Even in the dark, she would have seen you wince had she been awake. But she isn't and you envy her, because sleep has avoided you like the plague.

It's all about guilt, you know, although the mere thought is utterly ridiculous. Guilt over sleeping with your wife? How on earth is that possible?

But you don't really want an answer, because your answer has a name and an address, and a job, and the last thing you need at the moment is to start thinking about her.

Still you do it, and the burning of Kelly's touch intensifies.

You sigh; nothing feels right anymore, and somehow you figure that it would be really simple to change that. Because you're Joel Stevens and life supposedly smiles at you every day of the week.

It also manages to conjure the right combination of events to excuse your attraction to another woman. Which is part of your inner turmoil, since you refuse to surrender to self-indulgence.

You refuse to give Teresa the role of the 'other woman'.

She's too much of a woman for that. She's the most beautiful, funny, compassionate, wonderful woman you have met since your wife.

You realize you are starting to sound like David McNorris talking about his wife. That can't be good, considering the guy has cheated on her at least once to everybody's knowledge.

Which leads exactly to your point. You refuse to drag your family into such a mess. Things are rarely about you or your feelings, and this is no exception. Whenever you even consider the idea, two recurrent images pop inside your mind.

Finding Kelly in the bathtub covered in her own blood.

Trying to explain to Willie the reason her mother was lying in a hospital with a bandage wrapped around her wrists.

No, there is no way you could risk putting your son through that again.

And there is no way you could put Teresa through that either. You care way too much for her too. So much that it discards any chances of having a simple, old-fashioned affair with her.

Not that she would ever accept having an affair with you behind your wife's back.

Kelly shifts in your arms and you can't really deny you have been having problems in your marriage. If you told somebody, anybody, what is going on inside your mind right now, they would tell you to walk out on her.

They would tell you you have already done enough, and that marriage is a two-way deal. And that if Teresa is interested in you, you couldn't get any luckier, because she's pretty great and you deserve someone like that.

But you already know that, and yet they don't get the way things work with the two of you. Quite frankly, most of the time you don't either.

You're just friends. You know that. She knows that. You also know that you came very close to kissing her today, that she wasn't exactly complaining, and that anything could have happened had not Ray spoken when he did.

And you know that you keep looking back towards the damn ambulance every time you have to walk away from it.

You also know her eyes shine every time she looks at you, and her lips curve into a smile as soft as yours when her gaze finds yours.

That not only brings you reassurance and peace, and confidence, and faith in the world; it makes you believe for a second that you might be someone special, and you love her for that.

The way you vaguely recall loving your wife, not long ago.

You still love her, you know. You love her, otherwise you wouldn't have stuck by her. But now you're not certain how much of that is pride and stubbornness and how much love.

You don't know anything anymore.

Because you can think of a thousand reasons to justify your falling in love with Teresa.

But you can't remember for the life of you why you fell in love with your wife.

THE END

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Written by Mary S._  



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